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I'd say it's the opposite. The large portion of the population who believes everything the authorities tell them has a mental illness that prevents them from th

I'd say it's the opposite. The large portion of the population who believes everything the authorities tell them has a mental illness that prevents them from thinking critically and for themselves.

Klinky 12y ago
No one should abandon critical thinking.
palmer_eldritch 12y ago
I don't see how that's opposite. Not believing in conspiracy theories doesn't imply not thinking critically. In fact, critical thinking is pretty harmful to most conspiracy theories.
- V-2 12y ago
  Correct, but some people are rejecting every conspiracy theory on the sole ground that it assumes conspiracy, and this heuristic is not critical thinking.
  - palmer_eldritch 12y ago
    Given the amount of signal vs noise, I think it's pretty reasonable to ignore the crazies until they can back up their claims with hard evidence. If they can't do that, their "theory" isn't worth my time. Now if one of the crazies keeps bugging me with his theory, I might apply critical thinking to shut him up, if I don't lose patience and punch him in the face first.
    - socceroos 12y ago
      You've just contradicted yourself. On the one hand you state critical thinking is key and on the other hand you dismiss questioning popular opinion as crazy.
      - palmer_eldritch 12y ago
        Conspiracy theories are not "questioning popular opinion". You can question popular opinion without coming up with crazy theories, or at least, you should take them as what they are: wild guesses at what might explain some discrepancies in that popular opinion. Conspiracy theorists usually show a strong belief in something pretty improbable without a shred of tangible evidence. I think it's fair to label them as "crazies" because they tend to be very vocal about it and impervious to logical flaws in their own theories. And they're annoying, when you annoy people, you can expect some kind of negative feedback, like being mocked or called names.
jgreen10 12y ago
No one believes everything authorities say. Congress has a 15% approval rating ... Something that confuses a lot of conspiracy theorists is that global issues just aren't as important as local issues to people. Having a house, doing your job, raising your kids, spending time with loved ones, and anything that directly affects your ability to do so (e.g. your health, actions of people around you) are important and have a profound impact on your life. Sometimes the actions of authorities have a direct impact on your life as well, but mostly at a much smaller scale and with less relevance. Treating MH370 as something that's important to anyone other than people related to those involved leads to typical thinking errors like assuming Russia would care about this plane, or that people are being deluded. The horrible truth is that the whole thing just doesn't matter much.
sparaker 12y ago
Its important to look for supporting evidence and gather facts. Yes you're right the masses still believes everything they see on TV and other officially controlled media. The more time someone believes something, the more time it takes to break him out of it. As for conspiracy theorists these people generally have had atleast 1 experience in the past, where they had picked the right trail and were mislead. These guys generally tend to negate everything they get from mainstream sources and continue to advertise their version of events. I am not saying they are wrong or right, its just psychology. Most of these guys just need a single clue to say to themselves, "You see, i was right".
- stifledissent 12y ago
  > Its important to look for supporting evidence and gather facts. That's a reasonable stance. I tend to agree with you. It seems uncontroversial that it is important to look for supporting evidence and gather facts. I wonder what do you make of this public statement, published by Le Monde and written by 34 French scholars, made in February of 1979: "The question of how technically such a mass murder was possible should not be raised. It was technically possible because it occurred... There is not nor can there be a debate over the existence of the gas chambers." Do historians get a pass? Do they not need to look for supporting evidence and gather facts? I don't mean to be inflammatory so please don't vote me down. The point I'm making is that it's easy to dismiss "conspiracy theorists" for their silly ideas, and have these lofty goals of "evidence first", but when an extraordinary claim that is politically motivated stands on very shaky grounds, and "evidence first" is called into action as a modus operandi, then people are told they should not raise questions. I'd like to remind everyone that it is not controversial to state that there is no documentary evidence for the use of gas chambers between 1942 and 1945. This much has been stated in public television by Tim Sebastian in a 2000 BBC "Hardtalk" interview with a WW2 historian, and stated under oath by the leading WW2 atrocities historian Raul Hilberg. It's also important to talk about this because this places 99% of people firmly in the "conspiracy theorist" camp, as most people believe these unquestionable claims based on hearsay and not on any body of evidence. If someone disagrees and can show me wrong, please do so without naively assuming that I must have some racial agenda, which I can assure you - I don't.

I'd say it's the opposite. The large portion of the population who believes everything the authorities tell them has a mental illness that prevents them from thinking critically and for themselves.

Klinky 12y ago

No one should abandon critical thinking.

palmer_eldritch 12y ago

I don't see how that's opposite. Not believing in conspiracy theories doesn't imply not thinking critically. In fact, critical thinking is pretty harmful to most conspiracy theories.

V-2 12y ago
Correct, but some people are rejecting every conspiracy theory on the sole ground that it assumes conspiracy, and this heuristic is not critical thinking.
- palmer_eldritch 12y ago
  Given the amount of signal vs noise, I think it's pretty reasonable to ignore the crazies until they can back up their claims with hard evidence. If they can't do that, their "theory" isn't worth my time. Now if one of the crazies keeps bugging me with his theory, I might apply critical thinking to shut him up, if I don't lose patience and punch him in the face first.
  - socceroos 12y ago
    You've just contradicted yourself. On the one hand you state critical thinking is key and on the other hand you dismiss questioning popular opinion as crazy.
    - palmer_eldritch 12y ago
      Conspiracy theories are not "questioning popular opinion". You can question popular opinion without coming up with crazy theories, or at least, you should take them as what they are: wild guesses at what might explain some discrepancies in that popular opinion. Conspiracy theorists usually show a strong belief in something pretty improbable without a shred of tangible evidence. I think it's fair to label them as "crazies" because they tend to be very vocal about it and impervious to logical flaws in their own theories. And they're annoying, when you annoy people, you can expect some kind of negative feedback, like being mocked or called names.

jgreen10 12y ago

No one believes everything authorities say. Congress has a 15% approval rating ... Something that confuses a lot of conspiracy theorists is that global issues just aren't as important as local issues to people. Having a house, doing your job, raising your kids, spending time with loved ones, and anything that directly affects your ability to do so (e.g. your health, actions of people around you) are important and have a profound impact on your life. Sometimes the actions of authorities have a direct impact on your life as well, but mostly at a much smaller scale and with less relevance. Treating MH370 as something that's important to anyone other than people related to those involved leads to typical thinking errors like assuming Russia would care about this plane, or that people are being deluded. The horrible truth is that the whole thing just doesn't matter much.

sparaker 12y ago

Its important to look for supporting evidence and gather facts. Yes you're right the masses still believes everything they see on TV and other officially controlled media. The more time someone believes something, the more time it takes to break him out of it. As for conspiracy theorists these people generally have had atleast 1 experience in the past, where they had picked the right trail and were mislead. These guys generally tend to negate everything they get from mainstream sources and continue to advertise their version of events. I am not saying they are wrong or right, its just psychology. Most of these guys just need a single clue to say to themselves, "You see, i was right".

stifledissent 12y ago
> Its important to look for supporting evidence and gather facts. That's a reasonable stance. I tend to agree with you. It seems uncontroversial that it is important to look for supporting evidence and gather facts. I wonder what do you make of this public statement, published by Le Monde and written by 34 French scholars, made in February of 1979: "The question of how technically such a mass murder was possible should not be raised. It was technically possible because it occurred... There is not nor can there be a debate over the existence of the gas chambers." Do historians get a pass? Do they not need to look for supporting evidence and gather facts? I don't mean to be inflammatory so please don't vote me down. The point I'm making is that it's easy to dismiss "conspiracy theorists" for their silly ideas, and have these lofty goals of "evidence first", but when an extraordinary claim that is politically motivated stands on very shaky grounds, and "evidence first" is called into action as a modus operandi, then people are told they should not raise questions. I'd like to remind everyone that it is not controversial to state that there is no documentary evidence for the use of gas chambers between 1942 and 1945. This much has been stated in public television by Tim Sebastian in a 2000 BBC "Hardtalk" interview with a WW2 historian, and stated under oath by the leading WW2 atrocities historian Raul Hilberg. It's also important to talk about this because this places 99% of people firmly in the "conspiracy theorist" camp, as most people believe these unquestionable claims based on hearsay and not on any body of evidence. If someone disagrees and can show me wrong, please do so without naively assuming that I must have some racial agenda, which I can assure you - I don't.